Last day of April, 11 pm. I turned off my computer, put all papers I was working on in a pile, then looked at my May agenda. This is a normal thing I do at the end of each month, just to see how far (or how close) I am to a project. Then I broke into cold sweat. There I found my own writing, in red: HAYDN CONCERTO. The next morning, despite sleeping pills taken the previous night, I woke up at 4.30 and knew instantly that my days of turmoil will begin.
Silly me. 4 months ago, when the kids at University asked me to play the piano concerto, I wasn’t thinking 10 times before I said yes. All I thought at that time was: “Yay! Finally a chance to play with an orchestra!” Fun! Hip! Cool! But I should’ve known myself better. I should’ve known that I would take matters too seriously and not being casual about it. I should’ve known that I would spend at least two weeks before the concert becoming sick and sleepless.
Back in February, I could think of hundreds of good, proper reason why I should play. It would force me to practice regularly again: something I haven’t done in the past 6 years. It would send me back to the core of my education. It would prepare me mentally for smaller things…like school concerts, which still make me jittery. sometimes In principal, I was clear as crystal that this opportunity has a lot of good things in store.
The problem is, I forgot that I am teacherless at the moment. It’s a good thing that my best friend came to stay for a month, because then he’d be able to teach me and gave me the necessary technical instructions to conquer the piece. But as my practice session began, I found some difficulties, especially when I had to to very quick passages. A combination of anxiety and stress and excitement caused my arm muscles to strained and after at successive of quick notes, I would get pain in my lower arm. The worst thing is, my friend isn’t here anymore, so all I can have is a virtual advice on not to sprained my muscles. The third movement of the concerto presents another problem. It was so fast that my brain still couldn’t be able to cope with the running notes. Without instructions from the brain, my fingers just refuse to go by itself. Okay, fair enough.
However, having no one to come to every week to guide me really make me think of all aspects to solve my problems. I don’t think I ever practice with so much awareness before, and never in my life do I have to be so resourceful. Now when things go wrong or when some pain occurs, I stop and think what did I do wrong, and try to find another way of doing it. And I must say, practice has never been so fun and fulfilling!
I just hope that in time I can tell myself that everything’s going to be fine. It’s another mental exercise I have to do, besides all the physical efforts on the piano. I’ve printed in large fonth a quote from William Bryant that said, “Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness—a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.” All I have to do is keep these words in mind.
